Review: 'Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds' (PC)

A-TO-J CONNECTIONS

Back in May, Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds came out on the PS Vita, and hey, sure enough, we reviewed it. The simple story of going to Kyoto to find a missing dad became so much more. Now, out on Steam, Kyoto Winds faces a different platform. Although largely the same, there are a few new piece-parts.

There haven't been any change story-wise. Chizuru wants to find her Dad, comes to Kyoto, and is joined by several other Samurai to face new problems that arise. Quentin Tarantino meets The Magnificent Seven was the vibe I got last time, and it hasn't changed here.

While the story hasn't changed, thanks to the shift in device, controls have. But, as with Vita being intuitive, the PC version is as well. I got through the story simply. This aspect was ported brilliantly.

And that goes with the gameplay too. Straightforward last time, straight forward this time. Only nitpick was that, like with many games like this, I hope to have more of an animated play through rather than stills or barely animated stills. I get why it's like that, but when I click through and it looks like nothing changes, it can get tedious. But again, nitpick.

Speaking of which, the graphics carried over as well. Mostly Japanese-style stills. And just like last time, it gets points for being period accurate, but has points taken away for being largely more boring and feeling more like a book than a game.

I actually started typing up the music and sounds section without looking at my Vita review, and I found that it was largely the same. I mean, a few words were off, but chunks of it were the same. Like from last time - “The music in the game was pretty generic old-Japanese style. When things got tense, the music got tense and so on, but it all held the style and didn't leave a lot of room for variance. Fit the time period (when modern riffs didn't come in) but unspectacular. The sounds were mostly voice acting, and it was hit or miss. Some sounded sleepy, others sounded constantly angry and others didn't seem to know their lines. Others were spot on, and looked like the personification of their voice. All together – not bad, but I wanted so much more here.” - That is all still here, and good or bad, hasn't been changed.

The frame rate on Kyoto Winds was excellent, and much better than I remember about the Vita version. Mouths seemed to synch a bit more, transitions felt a little less rocky, and cosmetically, it seemed to flow a bit better than Vita. Vita didn't do much wrong in the 'things going wrong department', but even so, it feels like some things were smoothed out even more. A definite improvement over Vita.

Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds for Steam is largely the same game, albeit feeling a little better as if it were given a good once over, and controls being anew. It's still largely average despite a story and time that I liked, but with the Steam version, it felt a little better going through it. Still could have been more, but now, it's just a little more enjoyable.